


A Good Man is Hard to Find

by zempasuchil



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-08
Updated: 2010-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-18 13:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zempasuchil/pseuds/zempasuchil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Listen lady, he said in a high voice, if I had of been there I would of known and I wouldn't be like I am now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Man is Hard to Find

_I'll save you from the pirates._ Oh, what salvation. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Katara doesn't want to admit: it's something, and something is ultimately better than nothing.

-

"You know how to be good," she whispers as they stand there at a distance still, dimly lit by cave crystals. "I know you do."

Zuko's huffs and turns his head away. There is no humor in the sound.

-

"Your father will not take you back!"

"He will welcome you with open arms!" It is not Iroh's words but Azula's that unfreeze him, bring him to.

"If I only knew," Zuko says, and Katara can barely see in the dim green light his face twisted, in rage or against tears. "If only I could know."

"Stop!" Katara screams, but it's too late for the flashes of red flame, blue lightning; Aang falls.

(He is risen.)

-

"Why am I so bad at being good?!"

Toph hears him as she crawls away. She wants to give up on him but she just can't. Not yet.

He's right, though, she thinks later. Bad at being good. Why'd he leave the Fire Nation, anyway?

Then again, she's seen Katara, heard the stories about the waterbending scroll, remembers the sabotage, knows about bloodbending. Maybe he's not such a misfit after all.

-

"Revenge won't raise the dead."

The look in Katara's eyes could be pure hate for anyone but Sokka. "You don't love her if you're giving up like this. You don't know what could happen."

They are pale and wide-eyed in the false dawn. She raises her arms and the grass around her withers.

-

Aang presses a thumb to the Phoenix King's forehead.

Two fingers to his chest.

"You can't destroy the Phoenix King." No one hears him.

Light fills him and spills over the edges.

-

"Tell me," Zuko says. "Tell me." There are tears in his eyes and Ozai laughs until he suddenly feels like he's gripped by fire and needles inside and out, like he's been crushed by an icy wave, like he's truly dying. It smells like ozone.

"Tell me," his son growls.

"Wait," Ozai says. He sees his wife's face there superimposed on the boy's and there that he recognizes, that he had forgotten. Ozai is surprised to recognize death. "You wouldn't - You're my - "

Lightning fills him till his fingertips smoke.


End file.
